Need to raise your blood pressure?
 

They are bitter and resentful because they waited too long to get married and are therefore unable to have children. Good thing is once you have kids, you never talk to those people again.

Need to raise your blood pressure?
 

And if you do find yourself talking to them, you can just talk about your kids until they go away.

Need to raise your blood pressure?
 

Better bet is to give your kid a breakfast of Lucky Charms with Mountain Dew and let that work its wonders.

Schools/neighborhoods Thread
 

OK, thinking very seriously about a move to Peninsula. I recognize many names on the parents' board from the Silicon Valley boards so I apologize to TexLex and others to whom this is geographically irrelevant but would love to here folks take on some of the best areas to raise kids on the peninsula and how you've handled the issue of public school to offset the huge cost of real-estate versus going into a more affordable area/house but paying for private school. Etc. ETc.

Texas, the village missing its idiot.
 

Awwww, Oscar - why not move here? Our schools might suck ass, but the land is, well, dirt cheap.

Need to raise your blood pressure?
 

The best categiories for such a person:

* blind;
* retarded;
* crack whores.

Or maybe if you could find a blind retarded crack whore you would be in business.

considering that I just spelled "hear" as "here" in my post perhaps I shoudn't be worrying too much about schools...

by the way, how is the Lexling's massive body mass these days? you should post more updates, i'm eagerly awaiting the post that says he is bigger than me...

At 9mos he was 25.5lbs and 30.25" which translates to off the scale for weight and roughly 96% for height. He's probably about 26lbs now. He's likely not bigger than you, but he could probably eat you whole if he caught you sleeping - he has detachable jaws, you know.

Actually, he is very sad because they took blood today and on top of that, they refused to let him eat the bandage (bastards!). His white cell count was off last month, so think happy thoughts that that it will be back to normal this time.

sweet jesus; i think my oldest didn't break 25 lbs until about 2 1/2...

Schools/neighborhoods Thread
 

Oscar:

Lots of choices if you have a flexible budget. I'm partial to the San Mateo/Burlingame area, its a little colder than say, Redwood City/San Carlos, but still a nice place to grow up. Burlingame is a little hoity-toity, as is Hillsborough, but that's pretty much out of reach for most of us folk anyway. Belmont and Foster City are pretty nice too--and more affordable. Any major factors/wants that you have?

Schools/neighborhoods Thread
 

Redwood City: Climate Best by Government Test!

Seriously, you can't go wrong with Belmont, San Carlos, San Mateo, Foster City, Burlingame, Hillsborough, or parts of RWC.* Menlo Park and Atherton's probably good, too, until H.S. Best mix of schools and microclimate is probably San Carlos. Elementary is miles better than middle school there, but that might improve as the city's demographics shift away from retirees and toward families with middle school age kids.

Flinty's right that Burlingame can't be beat for perfect mix between lifestyle and school quality. Too bad 2/1s there cost $800K. You can get a 3/2 with the same money in any of the other places listed except Hillsborough and Atherton.

*Parts of RWC are really amazing in terms of houses. I don't know as much about the schools there, except that the smartest guy I know when to public school there until H.S. I gather he was in every gifted program they could throw at him, though.

P.S. If "Peninsula" includes Palo Alto and money is no object whatsoever, there are few things better than a H.S. education in Palo Alto, and I included some Big 10 colleges in that comparison.

Thanks for the info; most of what you're saying is consistent with what I've been hearing. What about Los Altos and Mountain View? No one mentioned those two communities. I've heard that Los Altos hills is stratospheric in terms of prices but that the flats still have some affordable homes and that Mt. View is relatively affordable.

Also, my impression of Redwood City from driving around was that for every house with an M3 and Range Rover in the driveway there was another with a still in the backyard and something jacked up on cinderblocks in the driveway. Just a bad first impression?

If it helps the analysis at all we have a small (1500sqft) 3/2. I think it would be tough to go much smaller than that (3 kids), and it would be equally tough to afford much more than $1MM so PA, MP and Atherton are pretty much out of the question.

Schools/neighborhoods Thread
 

Daaaaaaaaamn. Never again will I complain about skyrocketing home prices around these parts. Where do people live? $800k? $[b]8[/]00k? For a 3/2 in fairly random suburbs (I realize they're probably very nice, but we're not talking Manhattan here or anything - and how nice can they be if we're talking about 3/2s).

Schools/neighborhoods Thread
 

You can't, but they're more than random suburbs. Much of the peninsula is itself a hub of business. Compare with, e.g., the Dulles Corridor in DC area (well, not quite yet); Greenwich, Stamford, etc. in CT/NY; Route 128 communities in Boston (well, 4 years ago), and who knows where else.

But, yeah, most of those areas it's too expensive to be nice. Tiny houses on tiny lots, unless you invent the internet.

I think you misunderstood the person who told you that. For every house with a Jag and Range Rover in the driveway, there's another still British car jacked up on cinderblocks in the driveway. They're not very reliable, so a lot of people buy a couple so that they have one to drive while the second one is in the shop. Or the DIYers cannabalize the second car to keep the first one running.